The idea for this story was generated by the idea of getting Clark to become Lex's ward and what circumstances could lead to such a thing. There are so many amazing stories out there based on Smallville that I was inspired to try my hand at one. I admit thatthese wonderful storiesmade me fall in love with Lex myself and so I wanted to bring him into my world.

Please read and review if you have a chance! Thanks! Raythe:)

CHAPTER ONE: UNBOUND

Jonathan saw the look I gave Lex when I realized my best friend hadn't been killed in yet another meteor mutant attack. Chloe had breathlessly phoned me moments before to tell me that there were rumors that Lex had been taken hostage, that Lex was hospitalized, that Lex had ... died. It was the last that had broken through the mask I showed to the world, the mask I carefully crafted: one of wholesomeness and boyish desire for the local beauty queen. One of naivete and innocence. But I was in fact none of those things, not since I had breathed life into Lex Luthor when I was fifteen, almost exactly one year to the day.

I didn't hear the rest of what Chloe had to say as the phone slid from my nerveless fingers. I normally had an almost sixth sense about harm coming to Lex, but that fall day I had done my chores as usual and felt nothing. I was about to super speed out of the house to the Castle when Lex arrived at my front door in his newest Porsche.

Even going at normal human speed, I lunged through the doorway and was practically flying towards Lex as he slid out of the sports car. As the car door banged shut behind him, I could already smell his scent on the crisp fall air, something that was uniquely him under the muted mask of expensive cologne. Lex smelled of vanilla and sandalwood and something spicy that I couldn't place. He was running one hand over his bald head as if he had one of his migraines coming on so he didn't notice me bolt out of the house before I had him wrapped in a bear hug.

"Whoa, Clark! What's this all about? Not that I'm complaining, but--"

"You're not dead!"

"Ah, no. I seem not to be today." I heard the smile in his voice, but I couldn't stop my heart from thundering in my chest and my nerves from thrumming on overdrive. Lex seemed to feel it, too. "Clark, Clark, it's okay. I'm okay. It's okay."

He murmured these words over and over again while he cautiously rubbed a gloved hand up and down my back. He was always so careful when he touched me, when he spoke to me, God, when he did anything with me. I would have loved him for that gentleness even if he wasn't amazing in so many other ways.

He pulled back out of our embrace to look at me, though he didn't break away. His hands clung to my waist and my hands to his shoulders. I knew I should back up, stop gripping his muscular arms, draw away from the warmth of his body that my own sucked in as if it needed that warmth to survive. But I couldn't let him go, not yet, because I still wasn't sure he was alive, standing there in front of me in wheat colored trousers and plum shirt with the long black dress coat that accentuated his alabaster skin.

His blue-grey eyes met mine and a shiver went through me. My emotions were too raw, his possible death too fresh, to have given me time to reestablish my mask. Lex read people as easily as most of us do the Sunday comics. So one look at my eyes and he saw ... I knew he saw how I felt about him. Love, desire, shame, need, fear. The last came especially to a head when I realized that Jonathan had exited the barn and had been standing not ten feet away from us seeing the same unbound look on my face that Lex had.

"Dad," I stammered. I still called him that out loud, but I thought of him as Jonathan. Ever since he had wrapped a green meteor necklace around my neck, taken me to the cellar, stripped me, bound me and beat me I stopped thinking of him as "dad." The first time he did it was after I had saved Lex from the river and returned the truck he bought me as a gift. Jonathan sensed something in me even before I understood what it was. The green meteor necklace made me weak, made me susceptible to punishment and pain. You have unnatural desires for that Luthor boy, Clark. Don't think you can hide it from me. I can smell it on you.

I quickly moved my hands from Lex's shoulders and stepped back so that a chaste few feet were between us, but the damage was done. I saw Jonathan's lips press into a thin white line, his forehead begin to furrow and his hands stray to the pocket of his worn jeans. I knew he kept the necklace on him at all times in a small lead lined box so that unless he took it out of its case I wouldn't feel the effects. Lex's piercing gaze flicked from me to Jonathan, his eyes narrowed, his hands twitched at his sides like unsettled birds about to take flight. I felt my breathing start to hitch, even though I didn't need air. It was a panic attack.

"Clark, are you all right?" Lex asked, his voice smooth and low.

He scented something in the way Jonathan and I were reacting that wasn't right. As a Luthor, he understood predator and prey reactions. He was almost always the predator, unless his father was around, so maybe that gave him an even greater unconscious understanding of what was passing between Jonathan and I. Lex reached out to touch me on the shoulder, gentle my breathing, calm me. But it only made it worse.

Sweat broke out on my upper lip and I took another unconscious step backwards from Lex even though all I wanted was to throw myself into his arms and beg him to save me. But he couldn't. And I had put him at risk. Jonathan's threats pounded in my head: I know you think Luthor taking a liking to you means that you could get away from here ... away from your punishment so that you couldrevel in your wanton, foul desires, Clark, but just think of the trouble that could be brought to his door if he's accused of fucking an underaged boy? You know how Lionel is always looking for an excuse to send him away to that mental facility again. This would be just the thing to do it.So you will accept your punishment, Clark, and you will repent of your wickedness.

"Lex, son, you'd best get home," Jonathan said, his right eye twitched and I knew he was about to explode.

"I just came to pick up Clark for our plans," Lex said neutrally. We had no plans that day so I became sure he understood that something was going on. "Are you ready to go, Clark?" Lex asked as he opened the passenger side door of the Porshe and gestured for me to get in.

"Clark isn't going anywhere!" Jonathan lowered his voice, "He's not feeling well, Lex, so you'd best be off. We wouldn't want you to catch what Clark's got, would we, Clark?"

I flinched. I was so unable to control myself at that moment, so lost in the panic that I couldn't mimic a normal response. I could already feel the snap of Jonathan's belt across my shoulders, ribs and butt, the way the buckle would gouge my flesh, the blood that would flow sticky and thick down my thighs.

"Oh, don't worry, Mr. Kent, I never get sick. And with Mrs. Kent being at work and you running the farm, it would be better for Clark to come to the mansion. The staff and I can take care of him there. C'mon Clark, get in the car." Lex's eyes were steel as he flicked them from me to the car, willing me to get in.

"I ... I ..." I could feel my eyes begin to roll back in my head, my legs begin to shake, then my knees buckled. Jonathan had unleashed the meteor rock from its lead lined prison.

Lex was at my side in an instant, trying to half-lift and drag me to the car. "My God, Clark! What's wrong?"

"Get away from him, Luthor," Jonathan growled.

"What? Clark is ill and he needs to go to the hospital ... Mr. Kent, what are you--"

"I said for you to get your filthy god-forsaken hands off my son, you sodomite!" Jonathan had moved towards the pickup truck where the shot gun was in its rack.

Lex saw the movement and the gun, too, and knew Jonathan was in a mood to use it on him and with the way some people in town viewed Luthors there was good chance that Jonathan might get away with shooting him. But Lex clutched me tighter to him, shielding me from Jonathan. "Mr. Kent ... you're not thinking clearly. Clark is sick ... he needs to go to the hospital. That's all I want to do ... is take him to the hospital."

"You'll get your degenerate self off my property or I will fill you with buckshot. Clark doesn't need you or a hospital, do you, Clark?"

I met Lex's eyes with my own and God help me I smiled. I knew he cared for me, cared so much he was knowingly risking his life for me right at that moment and I could die happy that day knowing what he was capable of doing for me. But that kind of sacrifice he was offering demanded sacrifice in kind from me so I said, "Go home, Lex. I ... I'll be all right. Just ... just get out of here ... while you can. Please."

"I'm not leaving you, Clark," Lex hissed. "He'll have to follow through with his threat to shoot me."

"No!" I clutched the front of Lex's jacket, the softness felt so wonderful against my hands. I knew it was the last thing I would touch that day or maybe ever and was grateful it was something of Lex's. "I won't ... won't survive it if you're hurt because of me, Lex. For my sake, go!"

With my last remaining strength I thrust him from me and crawled on my stomach over towards the cellar door at the side of the house, trying to show Jonathan that I accepted my punishment. Lex would get away. Lex would survive and that's all that mattered.

The author would like to thank you for your continued support. Your review has been posted.